


The Most Important Job in the World

by Lynzee005



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 1960s, Best Man, Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Paul gets drunk, Weddings, Wine, drunk!Paul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 08:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19971304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynzee005/pseuds/Lynzee005
Summary: It was a well-known fact that Paul McCartney, twenty-three, formerly of Liverpool and currently heading up a small plot of land in the backyard of his best friend’s home in Esher, was a terrible lightweight when it came to wine.A drunken Paul, a bow and arrow, and a medieval sense of chivalric duty. What could possibly go wrong? (Based on a prompt from the lovely waveofahand)





	The Most Important Job in the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waveofahand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveofahand/gifts).



It was a well-known fact that Paul McCartney, twenty-three, formerly of Liverpool and currently heading up a small plot of land in the backyard of his best friend’s home in Esher, was a terrible lightweight when it came to wine. 

For as long as he could remember—or, rather, _couldn’t_ remember, as was often the case—Paul had never had a particularly good relationship with the grape. He could handle other alcohol well enough; scotch-and-Cokes were the drink of choice in those days, but Paul was known to partake in a pint or two on occasion as well, with few ill effects. Rum was tolerable; vodka, a little less so. Gin was right out, but only on account of the taste (Paul was increasingly a firm believer in flowers and their berries staying out of his drinks and firmly in gardens where they belonged) so the hard facts of its effects on Paul were little known. There was far less data to go on for some other choice spirits (bourbon being one and tequila another, with their 1964 New Orleans visit being the only source of information on both, but seeing as Paul indulged a little _too_ heartily on that occasion the data was skewed) so, for the time being, they weren’t really counted at all.

But one thing was for sure: nothing, from pilsner to the mezcal, came even remotely close to the staggering ability of wine to render Paul entirely legless. It was whispered that merely smelling the cork of a recently-opened bottle was all it took to cause Paul to break out his favourite show tunes. And it didn’t seem to matter if it was red or white—not that Paul did the adequate experimentation necessary to produce such data—or from which regions of the world the vino originated; if a bottle of wine was produced and Paul happened to imbibe, all bets were off.

Now, George Harrison, also formerly of Liverpool and currently the actual owner of the small plot of land in Esher on which Paul had merely claimed feudal squatter’s rights, knew this fact to be true. He’d known Paul for many years, after all. This was the entire reason why Paul was there in the first place: it was George’s wedding day, and he’d asked Paul to be his Best Man. 

George, however, made three mistakes in the lead-up to the wedding. They were, in order of magnitude:

  1. He explained to Paul, in great detail, what the traditional role of a Best Man actually was when he asked Paul if he’d do him the honour of standing next to him;
  2. He and wife-to-be Pattie purchased large quantities of very fine wine for the wedding reception to be held at their home;
  3. He forgot to lock the garden shed.



The first mistake was an honest one. George had been nervous to ask Paul, for reasons surpassing understanding, and so had rehearsed a Big Speech in case the day came and he couldn’t get the words out. It was a sound strategy, applying the principles of muscle memory, which worked so well for George during concert performances and recording sessions, to a very important question such as “Will you be my Best Man?” But George was naturally quite shy and this being one of the most important decisions of his life, he was extra nervous. So the Big Speech came out a lot differently than he’d expected.

“Well, Paul, y’see…,” he started, after a lot of toe-shuffling and hands-in-the-pocketsing, “…back in the old days, when a man was about to… you know… tie the knot, so to speak… he’d look around ‘im at ‘is mates to see who might be the best one… well, the one who was best with a sword, y’see… to help ‘im make sure that the wedding went off without a hitch, like if the bride’s father didn’t like ‘im, or if she had another boyfriend or something who might crash the proceedings…” he was losing the plot a little bit here, “…sort of like an armed guard, like the fella who sits at the front of those posh department stores and the like, except for a whole wedding and ‘e’s not just there to stop people from nicking salt and pepper shakers…”

Paul had rather enjoyed the look of red-faced terror on George’s face as he droned on and on, and teased and cajoled him until he got to the finer point of the matter, at which point Paul accepted. 

As if there’d been any doubt that he would. 

The second mistake was also an honest one, wine being a customary drink at wedding celebrations. George and Pattie had managed to secure a decent price for what they bought, as well, which was a bonus as far as George was concerned. But he _knew_ it was a mistake after he watched Paul sniff the bouquet in his first large glass of Shiraz and distinctly heard him begin to sing: “ _Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry…_ ”

But it was George’s wedding day, and surely it wasn’t his job to babysit his Best Man. Somewhere in between “Surrey With the Fringe” and sitting down at the piano to out-Hammerstein the lyrics in order to modernize it for a 1960s crowd _,_ nearly a full bottle of wine had disappeared into Paul’s bloodstream.

It was after his fourth glass of wine that well-lubricated wheels in Paul’s head began to turn. And it’s here that the third mistake comes into play. 

Even whilst drunk, Paul could still be quite observant. This is not to say that this observance was on display this night, because it wasn’t. Paul sincerely believed he was in greater control of his faculties than he actually was. It took him misinterpreting a nudge from Brian Epstein (meant to discourage yet another attempt from Paul to “kiss the bride”) to see that Pattie’s younger siblings were becoming bored and restless with the reception party they had been forced to attend. In his inebriated state, he took it upon himself to entertain the youngsters.

 _Wise move, Brian. I’m the perfect bloke for this job. The Best Man as it were,_ Paul thought, thinking himself rather clever as he marched the two boys into the yard to scare up some fun.

David—the eldest of the two at twelve years of age—and Robert—eleven, who was affectionately referred to as “Boo”—were exactly the right age for Paul to connect with, he being of normally sound mind and body but, at that moment, possessing the intellect and maturity of a Year 7 student. The trio became fast friends as they conspiratorially lowered their voices and planned a Great Escape into the Surrey wilderness. It was there, in the chilly evening air, that Paul had his big epiphany, the one that the gears in his head had been cranking him towards however clunkily since he moved alphabetically down the Great American Songbook and tried to serenade Louise Harrison with Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.”

Paul threw one arm around little Boo’s shoulder and the other around David’s and drew them close in the shade of a large and winter-bare tree. 

“Lads,” he drawled, swaying a bit as he did so and relying on the boys as counterbalances. “I have an important job to do tonight. The most important job in the world, in fact. So important that I cannot do it alone."

This, predictably, had a stunning effect on the two young boys, who sat enraptured as Paul embellished the historical record to reflect the most wild and outlandish justification for the scavenger hunt he was about to send them on: “We’re going to find us some weapons in order to defend the wedding party from nefarious ne’er-do-wells.”

David needed no further reason to run off in one direction; Boo took off in the other. Both eventually returned with variations on the theme of “swords”. It made sense from an imaginative point of view; long pointy things with a stabby bit on one end and somewhat holdable at the other were the strict purview of young boys their age. Anything could and frequently _would be_ turned into a broadsword, or a longsword, or a fencing sword, or really any kind of sword; the sky was the limit. 

However, all the various pieces of stick and bramble that the two youngsters assembled would have made was a large and toasty bonfire. In Paul’s eyes, none of them would do quite well enough, and as the little game wore on, Paul—who hung back beneath a tree in a lawn chair “throne”, King of Paul-ynesia, a newly-formed but federated state of Kinfauns roughly demarcated by the tree, a few rocks, and a naughty bramble Paul had already drunkenly tangled with once and preferred to steer clear from—became more and more convinced that he was suddenly too sober to continue playing. 

But then David came back with a bow and arrow—a _real bow and arrow!_ —and well! That was something else entirely. 

A wiser man would have marched the bow and arrow back to wherever it had been found. A more sober man would have at least put the thing down. In that moment, Paul was neither. He took it from David’s hands, held it reverently but distantly from his body, admiring it in the dim light of the January moon. 

“ _Where_ did you find this?”

The boy looked sheepish. “I-In the shed,” he stammered, expecting the worst. (Paul had apparently and accidentally inherited his father’s sternness of voice, a fact which was entirely lost on Paul in the moment.)

Instead, Paul beamed, fuzzing the edge of his words with wonder. “This is _excellent_.” 

And he _meant_ it. And David and Boo could not have been more excited.

Paul had been a Boy Scout, though he’d never been a Boy Scout whilst drunk, so that was something to contend with. Still, he took it upon himself to demonstrate the correct form and technique for shooting a bow and arrow. 

“See, lads, if yer gonna be defending yer big sister on her wedding day, you’ve got to keep yer eyes… yer eyes on the target, and put the arrow…” he swayed a little as he closed one eye and attempted to do what he was saying. “Put the arrow on the target in your line of vision. Then you pull back on the string…” another sway; he caught himself in time. “...and let it go.”

There was so much more to it than that, but Paul couldn’t have remembered it if he’d tried. Thus it was no surprise that the arrow flew scarcely five feet forward before nosediving into a patch of muddy grass. Paul scowled.

Boo laughed. “Let me have a go!”

Paul huffed a bit and handed the bow to the youngster, then attempted to model the posture and grip. “Keep yer elbow parallel to the ground,” he said. “Close yer dominant eye.”

“Which one’s that?”

Paul paused. “I don’t know,” he said, thinking better of his edict. “Keep yer eyes open then.”

Boo let go of the arrow. It flew through the air and landed a good ten feet beyond where Paul’s had crashed. Boo jumped around like a loon. “Aw-right!” he said. 

“My turn!” David cried, and Paul assumed the same stance, directing the older boy through the motions.

“Aim a little higher than the target.”

“Where’s the target?”

“You don’t have a target?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Never mind,” Paul said. “Just… aim at something.”

“Okay then…” David said, rather skeptically, as he pulled the string back taut and took a breath, then let it fly.

What happened next is one of those things that goes down in the annals of history, filed under “Injuries: None (It’s a Miracle, That)”. Paul always remembered it in slow motion. The arrow departed the bowstring on an upwards trajectory, slicing through the air with as much grace and elegance as a sharp pointed stick flying through a still and chilly winter’s night ought to possess according to the laws of physics as Paul understood them. The harmonic _twang_ of the bowstring underscored the fluidity of the movement, and dissipated as the arrow reached the zenith of its majestic arc and began its upside-down parabolic descent. It had already travelled some several yards already, and would continue to travel several more before it hit the ground. If Paul had had his wits about him, he would have noticed that the arrow was on a collision course. It was on a collision course with something other than the ground. And the collision course, unalterable at this point in the proceedings, took the arrow directly towards the one impediment to the arrow’s continued flight that was very much not-the-ground, as in the first two cases, but was rather the glistening black Rolls-Royce belonging to the bride and groom. 

All Paul could do was gape wordlessly as the arrow flew through the back window, shattering it on impact, before disappearing into the darkness of the car itself.

The guilty parties stood dumbstruck on the lawn. Paul took the bow back from David, and the sheaf of arrows from Boo. He flinched as a large piece of glass dropped fell from the car door to the pavement below.

“Good aim, David.”

“Thanks, Mr. McCartney.”

“Run along inside, yeah?”

“Yes, Mr. McCartney.”

That was the last they said on the subject.

* * *

A little less than half an hour later and more than a little worse for wear, George found Paul still sitting on the lawnchair. He still had the bow in his hands. He had yet to collect all the spent arrows.

“Don’t shoot,” George teased as he approached, his hands in the air.

Paul looked up. His head felt like it had been filled with sandbags. “The newly minted Mr Pattie Boyd, I presume?”

“One and only,” George said. He pulled up to a stop a few feet from Paul’s feet and rocked on his heels. “So…”

“So.”

“An arrow seems to have punctured the back window of my car.”

“Yes, I did it,” he lied, determined to be the adult and to now allow poor David’s reputation to be forever stained by this run-in with medieval weaponry and ancient marriage rites. “And I’ll pay for it, too.”

George laughed. “With what: buttons or good looks?”

“Talk to Brian, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got plenty of both to spare,” he croaked, leaning forward in his chair. “George?”

“Yeah, Paul?”

“I think I’m drunk.”

“Yes, Paul, I think you are.”

“I’m sorry.”

George helped Paul to his feet. “We’ve made up a bed for you,” he said. 

“Thanks, brother.”

“You’re welcome.”

They trudged toward the house in relative silence. Just before they reached the door, however, George turned to Paul. “Did you really sing Cole Porter songs to my mum?”

Paul shook his head. “It’s possible. Really, _anything_ is possible after wine…”

“Should have stuck with scotch.”

“‘Ey George?”

“Hm.”

“We were only trying to live up to the best Best Men of ages past, you know.”

“I know, Paul,” George said after a moment. “But you needn’t’ve. You always had the job. You _really_ didn’t need to fire arrows at my car to prove it.”

Northern men aren’t known for flights of feeling; this was as close as Paul could have hoped to get to a grand note of affection from his oldest friend in the band. 

He took it with pride.


End file.
